I’m going to undertake a full evaluation and investigation of YouTube with my children and students to canvass their ideas and views.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/hMLX68MHVtw" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

This short video was uploaded directly from my mobile phone. What fantastic opportunities… and I managed to do it without happy-slapping anyone!

Will Richardson has been on the road this year and wonders:

…. why we aren’t inviting kids to these conferences or workshops as a way to keep the presenters (myself included) honest, number one, but also to help teachers understand the realities of their worlds.

I think this is an important issue for conference and training organisers to at least consider. Students and teachers learning together and from each other – there’s a novel idea. Surely, it must be possible to come up with a construction that could work… Communicate06 gave a glimpse of the potential of engaging students at a training event.

Adding a few 7 year-olds to conference proceedings would soon make the presenters engage with reality and the ‘unconference’ format;-)

What dynamic is at work when schools or LEA’s take unilateral decisions to ban sites like YouTube without even consulting students (or teachers for that matter)?

Toss out a few negative soundbytes based on unbalanced media coverage and harp on about ‘duty of care’ and the decision is soon justified. Often though, there is not even a decision that anyone, in this era of transparency, can challenge or track. Where are the lists of sites published that are banned so that they can become an agenda item on the school council or at a staff meeting? Evaluating real websites for their suitability for task would be a purposeful learning activity for both teachers and students. Identifying, weighing up and avoiding potential risks while enjoying the benefits of a website is a creative challenge that faces everyone. Going through this process as a school community offers ownership of internet use decisions, something that is sadly lacking in many schools.

And what do students thinks about this state of affairs? Nothing! They do not care because it simply confirms to them the increasing irrelevance of their formal education to their everyday life. Whatever!

I’ve used the Academy Awards or Oscars a number of times over the years as a stimulus for writing, discussion or research. Students are motivated by the subject and are generally able to see through the materialism and recognise the place of such awards in the whole scheme of things.

A class could easily host their own awards, making up worthwhile categories, displaying the nominations on a blog or wiki and evaluating and using some online voting software to collect the opinions of the community. Design and create your own virtual oscar-like trophies and certificates to be awarded virtually or at a student-prepared event.
Once the nominations are in then the local press can be contacted as can the agents of any nominated celebrities/authors etc. This makes for a purposeful bit of research – best done in advance by the pupils. I reckon many in the public eye would be delighted to be nominated and would respond – probably not in person but you never know!

Like the UK Honours System that recognises any merit and service to the nation, your awards don’t have to be limited to the famous. Local community research would throw up a number of worthwhile nominees that could be honoured.

When the results are in a press-release should be prepared and sent to local newspapers and radio. Certificates should be sent to the winners with an invite to visit your school. Get the pupils to write speeches, to perform, to make food, to change the staffroom into a VIP Green Room!

I first came across Barbara when I had just started blogging at the British School of Amsterdam. I think Sarah Lohnes or Hector Vila pointed to her. Her work was and continues to be ground-breaking. Many talk a good blogging freedom with students but few have the tenacity, creativity and trust to make it really happen effectively. Barbara is the real deal.

For me personally, her keynote at blog.ac.uk was music to my ears. She passionately talks of the benefits of blogging because she has seen them with her own eyes and experienced them. There is no substitute for that. The transcript of the talk is here.

Her rallying call:

I have to stop hoping that anything can change; instead I must go about getting the work done. Inside. Where it counts. We edubloggers have to get our acts together, as you are doing here by gathering at this conference, forming communities amongst ourselves to lay out the direction. We’ve got to get the word out, show models, examples, proof—that means everyone of us needs to blog, to participate in such groups as teachersteachingteachers.org communicating about what we are doing in our classrooms and why—when things work and when they don’t; we must pull our colleagues aside and talk about the complex of new literacies and how they intersect with the old, about connected learning ecologies, about creating bridges and bonds within and between our communities. We must listen as much as we talk. We must reach out to one another. We must risk failure.

Whether it falls on deaf ears remains to be seen, but I for one am immensely grateful for having heard it firsthand!

(It was good to google Sarah and Hector to see what they’ve been up to. They are still rocking!)